After Years Apart, My Dad Returned to Us on Father's Day

I was born and raised in Cuba. Needless to say, our Father's Day experiences did not revolve around lavish BBQs, expensive gifts, or garden parties filled with dressed up family members all gifting one another. What we lacked in resources, however, was made up for in abundant love and the genuine desire to simply be around those we love.

But sometimes the lack of resources is combined with lack of family — and it's nothing but pure heartbreak. My family did not make it to the States until 1999, and when we did, we were missing the heart and soul of our family — my father, who had to stay behind for nearly half a decade.

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For my mother, my sister and I, moving to the U.S. while lacking the most essential part of our family was no easy feat and one of the most challenging times in my life. In our family, as with many Hispanic families, the father is an integral part of the infrastructure and assumes the largest responsibility of all: To constantly strive for and provide a better life for their offspring.

How was a family of all women supposed to relocate to an entirely different country, despite having no knowledge of the English language or American culture, and no clear plan on how to establish a new life? We had no clue. But we did know that my father's sacrifice could not go in vain.

We waited anxiously for my father to join us in America for four years. My mother, sister, and I became a task force with an important mission: To take on what would be Dad's tasks and show him our immeasurable appreciation for his sacrifice. We wanted my Dad to arrive to the States without a single worry, without having to take on a million responsibilities that we selfishly could have held off on until his arrival.

The big day eventually came on June 23rd, 2003 — Father's Day weekend. After years of letters, Facebook chats, spotty e-mails, and weeks without communication … there he was. My father, the strong-willed, bighearted man who was willing to endure years of solitude in an impoverished and oppressed country for the advancement of his family, was running to us with tears pouring so heavily his T-shirt resembled that of raindrops spotting and trickling down a car's windshield.

"A little more grey hairs."

"Aw, look at his crow's feet."

"Wow, his hands have really aged."

"Oh no. He looks so skinny."

It was almost like being in the Twilight Zone, but one you never want to escape from. Standing there, almost starstruck, I was paralyzed by an unstoppable stream of thoughts — that was, until the first hug game and my entire world came to a halt. At that moment, nothing mattered more than to be in his embrace, to celebrate the end of a brutal and lonely era and begin a new life … together.

Finally, the pain of watching my friends go on camping finally trips, accompanying them on Father's Day shopping sprees empty handed, and having to opt out of father/daughter events was over. No amount of Art of Shaving Kits, expensive watches, or the family trips we are able to make now will never surpass or come close to that afternoon airport reunion and the turn of a new leaf, the start of a new life.

My first and best Father's Day experience was simple: Welcoming the man who gave me life to a new life, one we were about to start. Together.